…………………..Because Everything Else Just Bites!

Tag Archives: Entertainer

In the paragraphs below y’all will be reading information which I finally had time to transcribe from a recorded talk I had with a very good friend of mine and former employer. She discusses the life of a stripper, how to make money, what to do with that money, personal safety, and so much more. I encourage y’all to set some time aside to read the information she has provided as it is considerably lengthy. It also provides insight to her personal accomplishments and how she has become a successful businesswoman. There are very different professions for all of the people who want to work, hopefully this will show y’all a different view of the world a stripper lives in. This could very easily be done as three separate posts but I’m an all you can eat buffet kind of guy who likes to get my fill all in one sitting. So, with that being said, here we go.

To begin with let me say that I started stripping at the age seventeen with a fake identification and a fast talking mouth. With that resting comfortably in the back of your head I also opened my own full nude strip club at the age of 24 in Houston and have since opened another location in Dallas. There are a great deal of misconceptions out there about strippers and that is something you will have to deal with if you enter the profession. I will say this, I truly enjoy what I do and I have never felt exploited because I’m a stripper. In fact I have always felt it was far more personally empowering than any other profession. But stripping is not for everyone. It requires a certain temperament. Don’t go and become a stripper because you feel you “have” to. If you hate what you do it will show and you will make very little money as a stripper. The minute you start dancing the clock is ticking. There are a limited number of years in which to make as much money as you can. Most dancers retire around 27. If you’re starting when you’re 18 that gives you nine years in which to make as much money as you can and then get out. Chances are you will never again be able to make as much per day as you do while stripping. Make the most of of the time.

There are two kinds of strippers, subsistence and capital strippers. A subsistence stripper just works enough to get by. Maybe a few days a week, saves little and is always in a financial crisis. I see these girls panicking to get enough dances to pay rent the next day but by the next week they are back to partying, doing drugs, buying expensive clothes and generally pissing away every dime they earn. Their plans for the future are vague at best and even though they claim to realize they can’t dance forever they seldom save and invest their money or invest in an education. These girls get out of the business no better then they started and spend the rest of their lives getting their ass pinched in menial, low paying jobs. A capital stripper dances as an investment. In my opinion this is the only reason to strip. Stripping is just too hard a way to earn a living to do it for just enough to “get by”. You can get by on a McDonalds salary. If you are going to have guys staring at your naked ass all evening you should at least be securing a decent future for yourself, not just tomorrow’s groceries and rent. There are many excuses for not saving your money but in my experience few of them are valid. Single mother, health problems whatever, you can still afford to save. If you work hard you can make a great deal of money stripping.

When you see that money in your hand it just doesn’t seem real, and when you keep seeing it night after night it seems like the supply will be endless. It’s really not, you need to put away the largest portion you can. Not just 10% or so but 40% or 60%. It is possible to do that and still live a very comfortable life. Strippers tend to live beyond their means and end up with nothing but memories of that nice sports car or that fancy apartment. If you can just keep it under control for a few years you can have that stuff for the rest of your life, long after you’re done stripping. Live within your means; base your spending around not what you make stripping but what you would make at a good entry-level job. Get a good, reliable car but you don’t need that giant SUV or fast sports car. Make sure your lease or car loan doesn’t rely on a strippers level of income to pay it. Same goes for the rent or mortgage. It’s very easy to fall on heels and break an ankle or tear up your knee, it happens all the time. You could be out of work for weeks or even months. You don’t want to be buried under a mountain of bills. I suggest buying at least basic health insurance but if you don’t you will need at least enough savings to pay for emergencies.

So what to do with the money you save? Well, set enough aside to pay for all of your expenses like food, housing, tuition, utilities, car, whatever for 4 months. This is your emergency fund, put it in your saving account and don’t spend it. The rest you should invest. I have a few well chosen mutual funds that I have been very happy with. As a stripper you’re looking to invest for the long term, at least 5 years and probably 10. Mutual funds are low maintenance and are well suited for this purpose. I strongly advise against investing in individual stocks. Despite all tales of buying low and selling high at the end of the year very few people are able to make money off buying and selling individual stocks. Stick with mutual funds, they are safer and more reliable (at least for the novice investor).

The best possible investment you can make is an education. With a nice big nest egg and a good degree you can do just about anything you want when you retire from stripping. Without an education or any job skills that money will eventually be gone. With an education you can make the most of your savings, use it as capital for your own business or invest it for a steady source of income. Too many strippers talk about how they’re planning on going back to school or they’re just taking a semester off. This is bullshit, if you want an education you need to go to school and work hard. If you’re not going to school then you’re pissing away your own future.

At most clubs you will walk around and ask the customers if they’d like a private dance (or lap dance depending on the club). Some clubs just have stage dancing. Often there is a private area that you can go for a dance. Be careful, though, the dim lights and the privacy tend to make the guys a little frisky. Not in a bad or scary way just in a way that may need to be corrected. The most important thing to do when you’re dancing is to smile and make eye contact. Nothing turns a guy off faster then a stripper strolling bored around the stage while staring vacantly off into space. Try to make each guy you’re dancing for think he’s the only guy you’re dancing for. This is how the pros make the big bucks. At many clubs a significant part of your nightly earnings comes from private dances. Most of the time the customer will pay for you to sit and talk with them as well. Guys vary a lot but it’s always important to be attentive. Nobody likes to feel like they’re being ignored. Most guys are pretty nice and easy to talk to. Provided you’re a good listener and act interested, it’s no problem. Then you get the guys who aren’t trying to be obnoxious, they just don’t have the best social skills. They will sit and alternate between nagging you to go out with them and lying about how much money they have, how many places they’ve traveled, how important they are in their company, etc. Simpering and looks of wide-eyed wonder come in handy at this point. Some guys are an absolute pleasure to sit with, they buy plenty of dances, they visit on a regular basis, and best of all they’re lots of fun to talk too. It’s guys like this who really make it all worth while.

When dancing it’s important to stay motivated, at most clubs you are an independent contractor. You won’t get fired if you don’t work hard and no one will say anything if you decide to hang out at the bar and talk all night talking to the bartender. You need to treat being a stripper like a job and not a social experience. Decide on what time and how long you will have dinner for, the rest of the time work the floor as hard as you can. Make sure you always get at least 8 hours of sleep so you’re not tired. You’ll look and feel better. Set a clear goal, try to get 4 dances and hour, as you get better set higher goals for yourself. Never assume a passive approach and wait for them to call you over, stay moving and keep working. If it’s hard and you just can’t get motivated make a game of it, make bets with other girls on who can get the most dances. Promise yourself ice cream if you reach a certain goal, whatever you have to do to stay motivated and keep earning that money.

Learning how to properly break the ice and get invited to sit with a customer takes time. Most girls tend to just walk around to every guy in the room and ask “Wanna dance?” and then when he says no walk off. This is the exact wrong approach. Every guy in that room has enough money for at least one dance and you just have to find the right words to get them to buy one or more. “Wanna dance?” can work in a very crowded room or if a guy is already interested but it will do absolutely nothing to convince a guy who was uninterested to change his mind. It’s too easy to say no to and that is usually what happens. To start with, choose your targets, who is looking at you the most when you are on stage or dancing for other customers? Talk to the bartender (always be friends and take to the bartender) and the floor hosts about who has an open tab or has been spending a lot of money. If a bartender or floor hosts gives you a good lead and you make money ALWAYS tip them at the end of the night and that way next time they will go to you first when they see a big spender. When you approach your prospective customer try and say anything but “Wanna dance?”: would you like some company?, would you like if I joined you? If the room is slow and he seems reluctant put a very slight push on. If he says he’s not interested ask if he would mind if you just sat down and rested your feet for a minute- you’re “not used to these heels”. Few men are going to say no to that, and the “not used to these heels” implies that you’re a new dancer and invites conversation. If 10 minutes go by and he still doesn’t buy a dance don’t ask- just say “I’m sorry, I’ve got to get back to work- it’s been nice talking to you okay?” This implies that you didn’t consider sitting with him work, a slight bit of flattery that will get you a dance later. Think of this approach as “seeding” in that you may not get the dance then, but chances are you will later. After a half-hour of “wanna dance” from the other girls he’s going to wish for your company again and probably be willing to pay for it. Or even the next time he comes in your’s will be the familiar face. With this approach it’s important you not spend too long with them, always keep them hungry. Unless they’re paying don’t sit with them longer then 10 to 15 minutes and only that long if the room is very slow. If they’re used to getting it for free it’s going to be hard to get them to pay for it. You’re friendly and available and they just have to be willing to pay for it.

Never ever, sit on your own or hang out at the bar talking to other strippers. At any given time you should be either sitting with a customer, moving to another customer or on stage getting naked. If you’re just standing around they will assume you’re not busy and it will be very hard to get a customer to pay for your time because “you’re not doing anything anyway”. Look busy, if they think other men want you then they will want you. It’s important you have respect for the money they give you, so much money changes hands that girls often forget what it represents. Let’s say your customer earns $40,000 a year after taxes- probably about average income for a stripclub patron in Houston. That works out to around $20 an hour. If a customer sits with you and you make $100, that’s 5 hours of his time. If a handyman came to your house and fixed thing for 5 hours you’d say “thank you” right? Always thank the customer and make sure he knows you mean it. Even if $100 doesn’t seem like a lot of money to you to the average customer it is.

One last thing, don’t screw with guys’ heads. It’s not cool, you can make money without doing it. I see lots of girls who string guys along implying they’ll go out with them if they just visit a few more times or laying on sob stories about their sick children or parents. Don’t do it, there is never any reason for you to lie as a stripper. After a few repetitions it gets very fake and you just come off as a greedy gold digging bitch. If you want customers to treat you with respect you should treat them with respect. If they are disrespectful just walk away, there is no reason for you to sink to their level. There are more then enough good men who will to pay you to sit, talk and laugh with them and when you dance they will treat you like a goddess. As customers they deserve your courtesy and if they don’t respect you in return they don’t deserve to have you spend time with them. Safety is a critical issue for strippers. Many menaked not understand that what we sell is a fantasy or feel that our employment makes us fair game for unwanted attentions. The six dumbest words that can leave a woman’s mouth are “I can take care of myself”. No you can’t, and get any notion that you’re some kind of tough girl out of your head. Men are bigger, stronger and meaner. They’ve been beating and raping women for thousands of years now and have pretty much got it down pat. Your little kick boxing lessons at the health club will not help you. If a grown man hits you full force you will be knocked unconscious and very likely break the bones in your face. Do not ever make safety decisions based on your opinion of your ability to defend yourself.

I personally think that carrying weapons or taking martial art, self-defense classes etc. are a bad idea for most women. The most effective way to survive is to be scared; anything that makes you brave makes you more likely to walk into a dangerous situation. If you have a gun in your purse you might be more likely to take that shortcut home, or take a ride with a man you don’t know very well or any number of risky things. If you’re scared you’re careful, if you’re careful you don’t get into trouble. If you are a feature stripper, have a very public presence (website or modeling), or have had problems with a stalker then a gun may be something you want to consider purchasing. You need to be trained in it’s use and practice with it at a firing range at least once every few months. Don’t bother carrying one unless you comfortable with the idea of killing someone. That’s what guns are for, you’re not going to be shooting knives out of anyone’s hands, you’re going to be trying to make a hole in the center of their torso. If you have small hands like me you can have a gunsmith machine a trigger guard that will comfortable fit your finger but too small for the finger of a grown man. But I would like to emphasize, most women are far better off not carrying a gun. Only if you are in a position of constantly being exposed to unavoidable danger is it an option.

One never wishes to blame the victim but every single girl I know without exception who has ever gotten into trouble was doing something most women would consider risky or just plain stupid. Don’t take chances- the stakes are too high. As a stripper, leaving the club after work is the time when you are most vulnerable. I have only gotten scared twice at work. On both occasions it was when an overly enthusiastic customer decided to wait for me outside the club after closing. On both occasions the men were just confused about the nature of what a stripper does and were quickly dealt with by security. This being said, transportation is a critical safety issue that you really have to think about. Going to work is not a problem because customers can’t really see where you are coming from. Leaving is when you have to be most vigilant. Public transportation is out of the question, it’s too easy to be followed and is rarely safe at the hours you’ll be riding. I’d suggest sharing a cab with one of the other girls. If you decide to drive, make very sure that your car is reliable, last thing you need is a break down on an empty road at 3AM. A cell phone is a good thing to have. Make sure when you register you car you do it to another address (friend, parent, etc.). That way if some creep takes down your license plate number he can’t find out your home address. For obvious reasons never give any personal info to anyone who knows you as a stripper, including other strippers. There are strippers and bouncers who will give the information to customers for money or as a favor. There is no reason anyone needs to know anything but your stage name. Don’t tell them where you live or what school you go to no matter how trust worthy they seem. Once that information is out it’s very difficult to put back in the box.

We are not all success stories. I had my eye on the prize the first time someone slipped money in my garter. I learned how to capitalize on a man’s willingness to part with his hard earned money to see me naked. Done properly, a stripper can sock away grand amounts of cash just by dancing naked, and it can end as a very fruitful career choice. Not every girl is a naturally born stripper, you have to be willing to work your ass off, and then the world holds endless possibilities for you.

No, I am not a relationship expert. No, I am not going to give y’all relationship advice. No, I am not trying to confuse you. I personally hate hearing relationship advice and I don’t give it because I don’t know what is rattling around in another fucker’s skull. With that being said, I got a rather lengthy e-mail from my #1 hater (fan/stalker) explaining how I can have a better relationship with my wife since I’m such an asshole. I won’t glorify her ignorance of my marriage by sitting examples but it made me sit down and think of the top five (5) people nobody should take serious relationship advice from. Finding people to give you advice on relationships is like finding people who want a free lunch; everyone has something to say about relationships just like everyone likes a great free lunch. Some of this advice is good and should be filed away in your subconscious for safekeeping, but most relationship advice isn’t so fucking good and should be taken the same way you’d take an article written for international woman’s magazines, with an enormous grain of salt. I don’t think it’s not that people intend to give shitty advice on relationships, rather, the advice is poor because the people who are giving it are either not qualified or they have ulterior motives. With that being said, there are five people (or types of people) you should stay away from when the advice on relationships starts flying.

1. Any and all television personalities. It’s important to remember that they are, above all, entertainerss with that being their number one goal, to enyertain. Entertainers care about their ratings, not about your relationship. If you’re looking at these shows as a model of relationship behavior, you’re barking up the wrong tree so much that you’re not even in the right forest. So while these shows and these people may occasionally offer a pearl of wisdom, remember that it’s Hollywood.

2. Your never-married aunt is another person whose advice on relationships is best to avoid at all costs. People who have never married often can’t help but harbor a certain essence of bitterness or misplaced desires. This isn’t to say that every single person in the world is bitter, but many who have dated for years and never gotten the ultimate reward are like professional athletes who have never won a championship: they are bitter about their lack of a ring.

3. Your seven-times married aunt is one more person you should avoid getting relationship advice from. On the opposite side of those who’ve never married are those who change spouses like most people change cars; when their husband gets too many miles, they trade him in for a younger model. These people can also be bitter because even though they have married, they haven’t done it successfully. But the biggest reason not to seek out their advice for relationships has to do with them not really knowing how to make a relationship actually work.

4. Your ex, never trust your ex to give sound relationship advice. Logic tells us that an ex might have insightful advice that you can truly use. They know you, they know what went wrong, and they know what you could have done to make your relationship work. Logic tells us this, but human behavior tells us the opposite. If you and your ex are truly friends (and don’t just pretend to be in front of the children), no longer harboring any feelings for one another, then an ex might actually be your relationship guru. But if your ex has feelings for you at all, be it love, anger, or hatred, they may purposely sabotage you instead of helping you. Sometimes, it’s just too big of a risk to take. Plus, isn’t that person you ex for one or more reasons?

5. And for the love of whatever diety you pray to, do not take relationship advuce from any comment sections of the internet or from unsolicited e-mails. I was once told that the internet can be a wonderful place for advice on relationships, but it has to be the right area of the internet. What is the “right” area of the internet? Should we just Google it? The comment section of web articles is not a good place to get advice on relationships or anything else. These sections are filled with baiters whose main goal is to get a rise out of people. They do this through racist, sexist, homophobic, religious, and other offensive comments. They cause people to do two things, lose faith in the happily ever after, and lose faith in humanity in general.

Which is why y’all are here, right? Expecting me to drop a pearl of wisdom by accident? Well, don’t feel fucking stupid or misled, I mentioned at the beginning this was to help shed light (both serious & funny) on some of the people we might have in our lives. Want my advice? Do whatever works for you and piss on everything else. The end, that’s all the advice I have. As well, that is the only advice I will ever need. My relationship may not look perfect to you but it works perfectly for us.

I’ve wrote my fair share here about how I worshipped at the alter of Crown Royal for many years. However, I have never told the story of the journey I thought I was on, the journey where I was looking for the questions to answers I had, and how my journey came to an absolute sudden stop. Over the past weekend I came across a ghost from my not so distant past. I wasn’t looking for the ghost, but I think I was lead to finding it for a reason. I think my finding the ghost let me reflect about the past and how it led me to be where I am today. Over the years I have given alcoholics a very hard time because I don’t believe being an alcoholic is a disease or a disability because it’s absolutely not, being an alcoholic is a choice because drinking is a choice. Personally, at this point in my life I don’t care if a single person agrees with me or disagrees with me, it’s a choice and that’s a damn fact. Oddly enough, I’m listening to “Whiskey In The Jar” by Metallica as I write about all of this. I can’t help it, I like the song, it drowns out the chatter of the conversation happening in Spanish 10 feet away. I didn’t need to be put in a “mood” because I was already there, already at the point where I had opened the wounds far enough where I was ready to write without any struggles. But I am struggling, I struggle with the feelings and emotions that have come out since opening the coffin of my dead journey. The big question y’all might be having is what journey died and how did it die. First of all, the short answer is I didn’t like where my life was going so I killed it dead, then I stomped a mudhole into it, then I kicked the shit out of it, then I burned it until it was a crispy critter, and then I buried it. Obviously I didn’t kill it or bury real well, I killed it alright, but my burial lacked conviction because I found it or it found me, however one chooses to look at it.

Now, before we begin exploring, let me just add that I’m not glorifying drinking or downplaying alcoholism as a prominent problem in American society. You might here me poke fun or saying derogatory things about both, but they are based on my experience, my observation, and my own opinion. So, with that, let’s start at the end because that is where my actual journey began. When I’m done writing this today this the journey might be over, it might get buried again, and for sure the reminders (triggers) have been dealt with accordingly. So, anyway, I was looking through some boxes in my storage building for a box, which as I found, was un-labeled, that contained files I needed, to include my DD-214 (discharge paperwork) and some other VA paperwork. Back when I packed all this up it would appear that liquor boxes were what I had. Mostly because I worked at a bar, so I always liberated the sturdy boxes. I didn’t know what box the files I was looking for actually looked like because I have slept since that day. As I went through the boxes, opening around 50 or so boxes, I came across a long forgotten collection, I found 3 boxes of Crown Royal bags of mixed and varied sizes. I sat down in my chair and thought damn, this was a slap in the face I wasn’t expecting. Way back when, back in the day if you will, I used to drink allot, you may not actually be able to comprehend how much, just know it was more than the average social drinker. My drink of choice was Crown Royal on ice, and many times I just skipped the ice altogether because I kept my Crown in a freezer. When I was in the Air Force I stockpiled Crown Royal, when I say stockpiled I bought it regularly by the case or two to three cases at a time. It wasn’t because I had parties all the time, it was my personal drinking stock. When I drank with friends I drank what they had and usually allot of tequila.

I can’t even began to phatheom the amount of Crown Royal I drank just while I was in the Air Force. Need I remind everyone that I built explosives for a living? To this day it still surprises me that I still have all my fingers. When I got my retirement orders I began to really stock up because I knew I would need Crown Royal on the cheap after my departure. I priced it out on the economy and found that I could buy it at the package store on base for right around 1/5 the cost. After I got out I drank as I pleased like there was no end to my supply for around 2 years. I always had an excuse to drink, if there is such a thing. My brother-in-law at the time, married to my baby sister, was an entertainer of sorts. He had a small band that consisted of himself as lead singer and guitar player, his sister who also sang and played keyboard, and her husband who played the drums. On occasion there were other members but my brother-in-law was such a dick that they didn’t stay that long. Anyway, every weekend starting Friday night they would play all the local dive country bars which were all b.y.o.b. (bring your own bottle) holes in the wall in the middle of nowhere at times. I don’t care for the wanging and twanging of country music much but I figured what a better place to get laid than by some drunk redneck girls. It has been my experience that redneck girls can ride for well over 8 seconds. After an ugly divorce I wanted two things in life and only two things, I wanted to drink to forget my own name and I wanted to fuck anyone who didn’t need me to remember her name.

Bonus, I could do as much as I wanted of both and nobody batted an eye at me. Not that it would have mattered because quite simply I didn’t give a shit about anyone’s opinion. About six months after getting out of the Air Force, while working for my father the concrete contractor, I found myself working on the other side of town. After an extremely long day in the heat, humidity, and the hot Texas sun, I was ready to call it quits for the day. Making my way home I drove by a bar with an advertisement I could not ignore, they were have a wet t-shirt contest, and drink specials. I was all over it. When I went in, after paying cover, I was entering the club with a mission, get drunk and find some tail. Bingo! The first thing I saw was a fantastic ass bent over the bar grabbing something from behind. My reaction? I walked up to her and smacked that ass with all my might! She jumped up so fast I almost got whiplash watching her. I knew something was up because it was all happening in slow motion and I was still 100% sober. She looked me square in the eye and TOLD me I owed her some drinks, some dancing, and a good fucking to take her mind off of how bad her ass was stinging. It’s a deal. We drank. We danced, well, she danced, I just moved around in a stuper. We drank. We made out a bit. We drank. Then I took her home, she was special.

We got married a year and a half later. Before that we spent allot of time together, I eventually moved her and her young daughter (1) into my apartment on the other side of town. She got a job and we were moving on. I introduced her to my weekend habit of going out to country gigs and life was one big party. Shortly after we got married, within the first month or so, after a night out partying, I woke up in my own puke. This wasn’t the first time, but I vowed that morning it was going to be the last damn time. And y’all know what? I’ve never looked back. Shortly after that my dad retired, leaving me without a job, so I contacted a friend of a friend of a friend who hired me as their front end bartender. My wife was worried that being in that close contact with alcohol that I would be heading back down the path of least resistance. She had no problem with it being a full nude strip bar but worried about me around all the alcohol. She had always heard it only takes one sip and all hell can break loose.

Fortunately for both of us I had no interest in the drinking any more. No, I never really quit drinking, but I quit drinking myself just shy of a coma every night. In fact, these days I don’t drink much at all, we don’t go out to bars, and most of my friends are actually family. So far so good. Personally I can’t see myself going back, I know, never say never. What happened to the Crown Royal bags? Currently my mother-in-law has them in her possession. She wanted them to make a quilt for me. I explained I didn’t need a quilt because I don’t want the everyday reminder of what an asshole I was when I was drinking. So who knows what she will eventually do with them. No, there was no Crown Royal remaining, which is unfortunate because that makes an easy Christmas present for most of the people I know. You’ve heard of cleaning out one’s closet, well this was my version. Oh, I found all the records I was hunting for in the first place. No telling what is in the rest of those boxes, probably shit I don’t need to be seeing anyways.

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